The present invention is directed to a ready-for-use refrigerated cookie dough which can be preserved in the refrigerator and which is typically prepared from flour, sugar, a leavening agent, a fat, water and other ingredients. The dough includes score lines thereon which facilitate breaking the dough into smaller pieces for baking into a final product, such as cookies, brownies or muffins.
Ready-made cookie dough already exists on the market. Typically, the dough is refrigerated and packaged either in a cylindrical shape or packaged in a cup. During use, the consumer uses a spoon or a knife to form the cookie in a circular shape prior to baking. This particular cookie dough preparation requires extensive manipulation of the cookie dough prior to use. If the cookie dough is packaged in the form of a block or sheet, then a forming device is needed in order to give the cookie the desired circular form. This cookie dough manipulation, however, leaves remnants of cookie dough pieces, which must then be recycled and reshaped if desired.
Another conventional product is a frozen cookie dough which is in the form of individual amounts to form single cookies. The amounts are provided by forming dough balls or by cutting the dough into individual pieces. The balls or pieces are then placed adjacent each other on a tray or other support, and are then frozen. The dough pieces, being tacky before freezing, stick to adjacent pieces and freeze into a solid block. During use, the consumer thaws the block and then separates the individual pieces for baking. As the preparation before freezing is somewhat complex, an improvement on these type products is also needed.
The present invention relates to a consumer-friendly, ready-to-bake refrigerated cookie dough which requires only a minimum amount of manipulation during use and which advantageously minimizes or eliminates dough pieces that need to be reshaped or recycled. Also, this dough is preformed easily into shapes to assist in the preparation and baking of the product.
The ready-for-use sweet dough can be preserved in the refrigerator. Typically, this dough is prepared from flour, sugar, a leavening agent, and a fat. Additionally, the dough is provided in a form ready for baking having grooves, score lines, or a combination thereof which define pieces of dough that are to be broken off and baked into final products, such as cookies, brownies, muffins, a cake, quick bread, or other pastry or bakery products.
The invention also relates to a method for providing individually baked products comprising the steps of: providing an uncooked dough sheet or block which has separable portions of predefined shape, separating one or more portions from the sheet or block and then baking the portions to obtain individually baked products. Advantageously, the shapes of the portions are defined by grooves, score lines or combinations thereof and the portions are separated from the sheet by breaking them along the grooves or score lines. The grooves or score lines may be intersecting or non-intersecting and substantially straight to define polygonal shaped portions, or at least partially arcuate to define the shape of an object having non-linear features, such as a cartoon character.
The portions may be baked in separate pans which define the final shape and configuration of the individually baked product, or separated portions can be baked in a single pan to facilitate more uniform baking and the portions. Alternatively, the dough may be formulated to flow upon baking and the portions baked on a sheet or pan which allows the portions to flow to form substantially round individually baked products.